Two Rural Hill School Registers have been processed and are now available for research in the Local History Department at the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library.
The collection contains two school registers from September 1938. One was maintained by Mrs. M.C. McCaleb (Lucy Russell McCaleb), a teacher of fourth and fifth grade, while the second was kept by Lorena M. Cox, a teacher of first, second and third grade.
Information recorded within each register includes the student’s name, date of birth, age, date of vaccination, grades, attendance, parent’s name, parent’s home city and parent’s occupation.
Edith Green, a junior at Mississippi School for Math and Science, processed the collection and created an index for both registers. Green has been completing a mentorship program in the archives throughout the spring semester.
Rural Hill School was originally founded in the mid- to late 1800s. In 1904, Professor B.G. Hull, a former teacher at Rural Hill, returned to the school with a plan to build a new, consolidated Rural Hill School. The new school opened in 1905, located on Pleasant Hill Road, and had gardens, high school education through 10th grade, and a music hall. He remained principal until 1918. It was the first school to be consolidated in the United States.
Rural Hill School had four classrooms, three teachers and seven grades. At that time there was also a library, Hi-Y and 4-H clubs, an enrollment of 103 students and two school buses. The school also served as the center for community gatherings in Rural Hill at that time, and had a Parent Teacher Association.
Rural Hill participated in the Summer Round-Up program in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which helped students who were entering school for the first time have access to doctors, dentists and nurses, so that all students were healthy for school. It participated with four other schools: city schools Barrow and Franklin, and county schools Steens and New Hope.
Rural Hill School closed in 1949 and has a historical marker, erected in 1999.
For more information contact Mona Vance-Ali at 662-329-5304 or by email at [email protected].
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